This invention relates to an apparatus for dispensing hand towels (and the like) and simultaneously compacting the discarded ones.
It is known that paper towels are provided in bathrooms of public places, restaurants, hospitals, and similars. This provides hygienic means to dry wet hands, faces, etc.
With the cost of raw material constantly rising, strong interest exists to recycle the valuable paper material. This endeavor has been so far, without avail, because it is so difficult to return the used paper towels to the paper-making process.
Used paper towels are normally discarded into a waste basket or a nearby plastic garbage bag (see U.S. Pat. No. 1,688,242). Since the used towels are loosely crumbled and thrown away, a lot of space is required, the waste basket fills up quickly, and a lot of paper towels pile up on the floor. The waste basket is thus filled more with air than with paper towels. Frequent emptying of the waste basket becomes necessary, resulting in high labor costs. The large volume of discarded paper towels is a nuisance, because the large quantity of garbage (more air than refuse) takes up much room. This extensive space requirement makes it very difficult to store the wastepaper for later sale to recycling operations.
Prior attempts to solve this problem have involved crushers, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,665,632 and 3,285,505. Crushers and dispensers and compactors have also been the subject of foreign inventors' activities as illustrated in German Pat. Nos. 2718145 and 2031422 and French Pat. No. 2468525. None of these, however, combine the advantages of the device which is the subject of the present invention.
The goal of this invention lies in the fact that the apparatus will not only dispense hand towels, but also provides the means to compact the used towels into a very small space.
The compacting dispenser of the present invention provides the solution to that task. The apparatus includes a housing having a holder dispenser for clean, unused towels and also having a used-towel compartment, which is equipped with an opening for filling it. The compartment has a floor which is movable against the effect of a force accumulator and is equipped with a compacting device in the area of the discard-opening. This invention has the advantage that paper towels can be dispensed and at the same time, the used ones, which were thrown into their discard opening, are compacted.
Thereby, as the fresh towels are being used and properly discarded into the compactor, a waste paper packet is formed, which has approximately the same volume as the fresh towels. This opens up the possibility to return the discarded towels to the supplier of the fresh ones. This makes it finally feasible to recycle the valuable paper stock.
With the above and other objects in view, more information and understanding of the present invention may be achieved by reference to the following detailed description.